Nina Frances Layard

Nina Layard was born in Stratford, Essex on 20 August 1853 to Rev. Charles Clement Layard and Sarah, née Somes. Her father was first cousin to Sir Austen Henry Layard (excavator of Nineveh and Nimrud), Edgar Leopold Layard (Curator of the South African Museum at Cape Town, and Governor of Fiji), and Lady Charlotte Guest (translator of the Mabinogion and collector of ceramics). Her paternal grandfather, Brownlow Villiers Layard, was aide-de-camp and afterwards private chaplain to the Duke of Kent (and brother of the Governors of Malta and Curaçao and of Lady Lindsey), and was the son of a Dean of Bristol and grandson of the accoucheur Daniel Peter Layard. Rev. Charles Layard was also a maternal first cousin of Lady Llanover (of the Welsh cultural revival), being the son of Louisa Port, sister of Georgiana (favoured grandniece of Mrs Delany and companion of Fanny Burney), and therefore a descendant of Bernard Granville of Calwich and of Sir Richard Grenville of 'The Revenge'. Nina Layard's mother Sarah Somes was sister of Samuel Somes and the MP Joseph Somes. In the 1830s her brothers were the largest ship-owners in London and held contracts for convict shipping to Australia. Nina Layard was a sister of the essayist and litterateur George Somes Layard, and therefore the aunt of John Willoughby Layard, psychologist and anthropologist.https://suffolkinstitute.pdfsrv.co.uk/customers/Suffolk%20Institute/2014/01/10/Volume%20XXXVIII%20Part%202%20(1994)_Nina%20Layard%20Hadleigh%20Road%20Ipswich%20Museum%201905-1908%20S%20J%20Plunkett_167%20to%20192.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=August 2024}}

Nina Layard was interested in natural history from a young age and was an enthusiastic collector of eggs and shells as a child. While her only formal education consisted of attendance at a dame-school in Willesden, Middlesex, over the course of her life, she was encouraged in the pursuit of her passions by a number of scholars, including Leonard Jenyns and John Ellor Taylor. In 1873 the family moved to Combe-Hay rectory, Bath, where her father was the Rector, and Layard continued her collecting. She travelled around the world via New Zealand in 1878–9.{{Cite ODNB |last=Plunkett |first=S. J. |title=Layard, Nina Frances (1853–1935), poet and archaeologist|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-58931|access-date=2021-03-15|year = 2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/58931}}

File:Palaeolithic Site in Ipswich Plate 20 Layard 1904 8.png

File:Anglo-Saxon Bead Necklaces Ipswich Layard 1907 24471 0035.jpg

Remarkably for the time, Layard directed multiple archaeological excavations. Her first, in 1898, was the Blackfriars monastery, Ipswich. Here she succeeded in locating the foundations walls of the medieval buildings. From 1902-1905, she conducted excavations at the Paleolithic site of Foxhall Road (Ipswich), arguably her most important contribution to the disciplines of archaeology and prehistory.{{Cite web|title=Nina Layard {{!}} TrowelBlazers|date=27 April 2014 |url=https://trowelblazers.com/nina-layard-flint-hunter-first-class/|access-date=2021-03-15}} Layard's work at Foxhall Road provided important evidence for the antiquity of humans (existence before the Ice Age), and her analysis of the stone tools discovered there enhanced understandings of the process of stone tool manufacture. In 1906-07, she excavated the Hadleigh Road site (Ipswich), an Anglo-Saxon cemetery under threat from a road-expansion project. Her work here documented 159 graves and their grave goods. The objects recovered were sent to the Ipswich Museum and her work on the site was published by the Society of Antiquaries (London), although as a woman, she herself was not allowed entry into the Society.

Layard moved to Ipswich in about 1890.Plunkett 1994, p. 167 Around 1895 she met and began a relationship with author, lecturer, and watercolourist Mary Frances Outram, daughter of Indian Civil Service official Sir Francis Outram, of Chantry House, Felixstowe, and granddaughter of Sir James Outram, 1st Baronet.White and Plunkett 2005, p. 6 The two women- who "had private means, influential family and social connections, and the leisure to pursue their interests"-https://suffolkinstitute.pdfsrv.co.uk/customers/Suffolk%20Institute/2014/01/10/Volume%20XXXVIII%20Part%202%20(1994)_Nina%20Layard%20Hadleigh%20Road%20Ipswich%20Museum%201905-1908%20S%20J%20Plunkett_167%20to%20192.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=August 2024}} lived together at "The Dowches", Kelvedon, Essex.Essex Naturalist- Being the Journal of the Essex Field Club, vol. 21, The Essex Field Club, 1927, p. 187Dorothy Garrod and the Progress of the Paleolithic, William Davies, Ruth Charles, Oxbow Books, 2017, p. 245 Outram helped Layard in her research, and provided illustrations and transcriptions. Outram died on 31 May 1935; Layard died soon after on 12 August 1935. They were buried in a shared grave.Plunkett 1994, p. 167

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |last1=Layard |first1=Nina Frances |title=Poems |date=1890 |publisher=Longmans, Green |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/poemslayard00laya}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Layard |first1=Nina Frances |author-mask=2 |title=Remarks on Wolsey's College and the Priory of St. Peter and St. Paul, Ipswich |journal=Archaeological Journal |date=1899 |volume=56 |pages=211–215 |doi=10.1080/00665983.1899.10852820 |url=https://archive.org/details/layard-1899-archaeologicaljo-56brit}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Layard |first1=Nina Frances |author-mask=2 |title=Original researches on the sites of religious houses of Ipswich: with plan of excavation|journal=Archaeological Journal |date=1899 |volume=56 |pages=232–238 |doi=10.1080/00665983.1899.10852823 |url=https://scholar.archive.org/work/sdxtaexd4fb2tb2u6236np557q/access/ia_file/crossref-pre-1909-scholarly-works/10.1080%252F00665983.1896.10852702.zip/10.1080%252F00665983.1899.10852823.pdf}}
• {{cite book |last1=Layard |first1=Nina Frances |author-mask=2 |title=Seventeen Suffolk martyrs |date=1902 |publisher=Smith, Suifall Press |location=Ipswich |url=https://archive.org/details/seventeensuffolk00layarich}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Layard |first1=Nina Frances |author-mask=2 |title=A recent discovery of Paleolithic implements in Ipswich |journal=The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland |date=1903 |volume=33 |pages=41–43 |doi=10.2307/2842989 |jstor=2842989 |url=https://scholar.archive.org/work/3usmssc4o5gxzk2rwniqkwrkae/access/ia_file/crossref-pre-1909-scholarly-works/10.2307%252F2842721.zip/10.2307%252F2842989.pdf}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Layard |first1=Nina Frances |author-mask=2 |title=Further Excavations on a Palaeolithic Site in Ipswich |journal=Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland |date=1904 |volume=34 |pages=306–310 |doi=10.2307/2843104 |jstor=2843104 |url=https://archive.org/details/layard-1904-journal-of-the-anthropological-institute-34-18607.16806}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Layard |first1=Nina Frances |author-mask=2 |title=A winter's work on the Ipswich Palaeolithic site |journal=Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland |date=1906 |volume=36 |pages=233–236 |doi=10.2307/1193259 |jstor=1193259 |url=https://scholar.archive.org/work/w3fdfcav7vclvlrsz4qlhyw32y/access/ia_file/crossref-pre-1909-scholarly-works/10.2307%252F1193243.zip/10.2307%252F1193259.pdf}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Layard |first1=Nina Frances |author-mask=2 |title=An Anglo-Saxon Cemetery in Ipswich |journal=Archaeologia |date=1907 |volume=60 |issue=2 |pages=325–352 |doi=10.1017/S0261340900005099 |url=https://archive.org/details/layard-1907-archaeologia-60-2-24471}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Layard |first1=Nina Frances |author-mask=2 |title=Prehistoric cooking places in Norfolk |journal=Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia |date=1922 |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=483–498 |doi=10.1017/S0958841800024674 |url=https://scholar.archive.org/work/xt4nuwhnm5dtre5cmmkwfaedoy/access/ia_file/crossref-pre-1923-scholarly-works/10.1017%252Fs0958841800023103.zip/10.1017%252Fs0958841800024674.pdf}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Layard |first1=Nina Frances |author-mask=2 |title=Bronze Crowns and a Bronze Head-dress, from a Roman site at Cavenham Heath, Suffolk |journal=The Antiquaries Journal |date=1925 |volume=5 |issue=3 |pages=258–265 |doi=10.1017/S0003581500006715 |s2cid=163954071 |url=https://archive.org/details/layard-1925-sim-antiquaries-journal-1925-07-5-3}}

• S.J. Plunkett 1994, 'Nina Layard, Hadleigh Road and Ipswich Museum 1905-1908', Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, 38(2), [http://suffolkinstitute.pdfsrv.co.uk/customers/Suffolk%20Institute/2014/01/10/Volume%20XXXVIII%20Part%202%20(1994)_Books%20church%20use%20Deanery%20Dunwich%201370-1547%20J%20Middleton-Stewart_149%20to%20166.pdf go to 164–166];[http://suffolkinstitute.pdfsrv.co.uk/customers/Suffolk%20Institute/2014/01/10/Volume%20XXXVIII%20Part%202%20(1994)_Nina%20Layard%20Hadleigh%20Road%20Ipswich%20Museum%201905-1908%20S%20J%20Plunkett_167%20to%20192.pdf 167–192].
• S.J. Plunkett 1994, Guardians of the Gipping: Anglo-Saxon Treasures from Hadleigh Road, Ipswich (Ipswich Borough Council 1994).
• S.J. Plunkett 1995, 'Nina Layard and the Sub-Crag committee of 1910', in A. Longcroft and R. Joby (Eds), East Anglian Studies — Essays presented to J C Barringer (Norwich, Marwood), 211–222.
• S.J. Plunkett 1997, 'Hamlet Watling 1818-1908: artist and antiquary', [http://suffolkinstitute.pdfsrv.co.uk/customers/Suffolk%20Institute/2014/01/10/Volume%20XXXIX%20Part%201%20(1997)_Hamlet%20Watling%20artist%20and%20schoolmaster%201818-1908%20S%20J%20Plunkett_48%20to%20107.pdf Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology 39, 48–75].
• S.J. Plunkett 1999, 'Nina Frances Layard, Prehistorian (1835-1953)', in W Davies and R Charles (Eds), Dorothy Garrod and the Progress of the Palaeolithic: Studies in the palaeolithic archaeology of the Near East and Europe (Oxford: Oxbow), 242–262. [https://books.google.com/books?id=yu4mDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA243 digitized] {{ISBN|1-900188-87-2}}.
• M. White and S.J. Plunkett, 2005, Miss Layard Excavates: a Palaeolithic site at Foxhall Road, Ipswich, 1903–1905 (Western Academic and Specialist Press: Liverpool). {{ISBN|0-9535418-8-6}}.
• S.J. Plunkett, 'Layard, Nina Frances (1853–1935), poet and archaeologist', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

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Category:1853 births

Category:1935 deaths

Category:Antiquarians from London

Category:Archaeologists from London

Category:English antiquarians

Category:English women poets

Category:English archaeologists

Category:English prehistorians

Category:Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London

Category:English women archaeologists

Category:English women non-fiction writers

Category:English women historians

Category:People from Essex

Category:People from Stratford, London

Category:Poets from London

Category:Writers from the London Borough of Newham